Page 18 - Sports Energy News, Cornwall, Issue No 133

18 Issue #133 February 2024
Collecting Brings Me Back in Time
By Thom Racine
s a long time collector of
Asports cards and memorabilia,
someone of my vintage is always
on the hunt for vintage items
that brings me back to my youth.
Coke caps with hockey and
football players on the caps from
1966. Or how about the Beehive
postcard sized black and white
photographs. Remember sending
in the labels from Corn Syrup to
get your favourite player in return,
and all for the price of a stamp?
York Peanut Butter octagon
shaped cards hidden under the jar
lids, or Sheriff Salada coins also
found in Red Rose tea throughout
the sixties. Post cereal football
cards that we had to cut out of the
back of the box.
All these great items are still
being found in old attic boxes and
musty cellar trunks and the key
words here “still being found.” As
for sports cards, well there isn’t a
week goes by that I don’t look up
my old cards from the late sixties
all the way through to 1990. Every
now and then I am called to look
at a collection that has been found
in the manner described above,
sometimes I leave scratching
my head that they survived in
www.sportsenergynews.com
boxes holding forty-eight packs
of ten cards each. That’s 7,680
cards in total. Now, doing the
math was easy and if every player
in the set has twenty cards in
those boxes, it could mean there
are twenty Gretzky rookies in that
lot. Regardless, for the hobby and
Photo by Heritage Auctions
for collectors it’s the equivalent
decent shape and have a value of a winning lottery ticket for the
that their owner is happy to know. finder. Pretty sure the gum will
But the so-called holy grail of be stuck to the bottom card and
basement finds was reported last here’s hoping none of the bottom
month when a man in Regina, cards are #18.
Saskatchewan found an unopened What a find… it’s being
case containing sixteen unopened auctioned off and at the time of
O-Pee-Chee hockey cards from printing, the bid was $1.5m. I can
the 1979-80 season. Yes, if you see many of you running to your
thought for a second, that was attic boxes and basement trunks.
the year Wayne Gretzky’s rookie If only your quest would be as
card, #18, appeared. Sixteen lucrative as this one.